Home
by Unidentified Pie
Summary: I'll be here for you. I will hold you when you cry. (Ryner and Ferris, and the times when each of them just needed the other there.)


**Author's Note:**

**Uhhh... I'm pretty happy with this, even though it's kinda short. Please lemme know what you think? Drop a review or two maybe?**

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**Home**

The day she says she won't leave him, the day she calls him an idiot and holds him tight - that's the first time Ferris ever sees Ryner cry.

(She strokes his hair - soft and damp with rain - and threads gentle fingers through the unruly strands; holds him tight and wonders why her chest aches so bad.)

He sobs against her, the gasping, desperate sound of a drowning man, sinking against Ferris like she's the only pocket of air in a sea of despair, and it's only then that she realises just how _alone_ he must have been, all those years.

(But now he'll be safe with her. Ferris will make sure no one ever hurts Ryner like that again. She'll _kill_ anyone who calls him a monster.)

"Welcome back," she says, her voice soft and smiling and _gentle_ in a way she's never learnt to be - Ryner's kindness has worn off on her.

His voice is cracking and hoarse when he replies.

"I'm home."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The mage knight calls Ryner a demon, a devil, and Ferris has never wanted to kill anyone more in her life. She wants to _murder_ him - chop him into pieces and tear him into _shreds_ \- for putting that bleak, dark look in Ryner's eyes, for hurting him _again_.

But if more mage knights come - as they are sure to - all hope for that child Ryner holds so tight in his arms is lost. And _that_ \- that would kill him as certain as a knife in the heart.

So she yells at him to _come on_ \- they need to go - and the suppressed fury, the hurt and raw desperation in his voice as he growls back an assent makes something in her chest tighten.

Later, by the stream, as he scrubs blood off the child's face and tends to the kid's wounds with gentle, expert hands, that's the second time she sees him cry.

(She hates the mage knights even more then - for making him hurt like this, for making Ryner go though something he absolutely does not deserve.)

(Mostly she hates them because it means she's failed. She hasn't protected Ryner, hasn't even managed to kill those mage knights for what they've done.)

But she stays silent, does nothing more that allow a hand to brush his, so that he snaps out of it and stares at her through bleak, brown eyes.

And then she nods.

(I'm here, she wants to say.)

He's not alone - neither of them is.

He just needs to learn that.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The next time they've swapped places, and it's Ferris who's crying and Ryner who's holding her, stroking her head with gentle motions even as she dampens his bandages with tears.

It's been a week. A whole week without her stupid, foolish companion to harass or eat dango with. A week of searching while Sion claimed he'd killed her partner. A week of holding back the stupid tightness in her chest that just would not _let her breathe_.

But now Ryner's here and she clings to him like a lifeline, the band around her chest snapping and allowing her to gasp desperate, heaving sobs.

A whole week without Ryner, without the man who always made the plans, who always led her along the right path. A week of searching and realising, with cold, sick feeling growing in her stomach, that she had no idea what to do without his brilliant ideas.

Mostly, it was a week of losing her two most important important people in the world, a week of realising that her friend had gone mad, of thinking but refusing to believe that her partner was dead.

(She never realised before this terrible nightmare of a week how much she really depends on Ryner - if she's a weapon, Ryner is the one who wields her; Ferris knows how to act, not plan.)

And now, as she clings to him - as his warm arms hold her tight in a safe, strong grip - as she calls him an idiot - Ferris thinks she's come home.

Even though their worlds are crumbling to the ground, even though Roland is going to war and Sion is going mad…

They still have each other. They're still the ultimate duo, the strongest pair - they will get back what they've lost.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

**Author's note:**

**Thanks for reading! Hope you like it! :)**

**God bless!**


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